Chapter 2

Life is a circle, I decided as I fastened the shirt, it just keeps going in circles. I took some time getting ready and some twenty minutes later I considered myself presentable enough for a date with a lesbian. She ran an eye over me with approval and nodded at the door.

She wasn’t wrong about flashing her badge or the sudden ability to find a spare table in a restaurant that appeared full. The blizzard had driven all but the hardiest souls inside and we were soon sitting at a table with a drinks waiter lurking nearby.

“White or red?” Elizabeth looked over the tops of her reading glasses, “what’s so funny?”

“You,” I replied, “you look like a professor in those glasses, madam Sherlock, um, red for me.”

“Red it is,” she pursed her lips.

Elizabeth was one of the most entertaining dinner dates I think I can recall, it’s kind of obvious because of the job but even so I half expected her to be kind of guarded about her job. There were things she didn’t give away but they were the things I kind of took for granted, but her personal life was certainly an open book.

“I was from Kentucky originally but my folks moved to Nebraska when dad got a job as a park ranger. I went from being a city kid to a country kid and it was a shock to the system. The first time I saw a bear I literally screamed and dad had to fire off a warning shot but I gradually got used to being outdoors, surrounded by trees and you knew your neighbors. Back in Memphis you locked your doors at night and checked they were locked when you left.”

She was one of two girls and had two brothers.

“My big sister is straight and happily married for the second time, my younger brother is living in Manchester, England with his wife, he’s the religious nut in our family. He’s with some Christian group with roots here, and my oldest brother is an engineer in Chicago.”

“How does your religious brother cope with having a gay sister?”

“Danny prays for me,” she smiled crookedly, “and I always say, go for it, pray I find a hot woman with lots of money who can keep me in the manner to which I’d like become accustomed.”

I laughed at that and she took another mouthful of food.

“But seriously, he might be religious and all, but we’re family. He prays for me, for my other sister and brother but none of us are religious. He’s the one who went forward at a Baptist convention and gave his heart to Jesus. Danny is one of the middle children, I’m the other. One went one way and I went the other way.”

Which finally brought us around to the elephant in the room.

“I kind of slipped into the lesbian world slowly, dipped my toes with one woman I met when I was training at the Academy but she was posted to Little Rock and I got sent to Las Vegas and it was in the city of sin I really cut loose. I was hooked up with one woman after another, but now and then I’d get with a guy just to see if the wind had shifted but when I started picking up dirty socks that was the sign to get rid of him. Women are a two edged sword, on the one hand we know how women think and on the other hand we know how women think.”

She lapsed into silence for a minute or two.

“But if you ask me if I’m gay or bisexual I’d have to say gay. I’ve been approached by guys since I broke up with my girlfriend but I know it’s just sex, when I was younger it did happen but once you get past a certain age it’s like you want to be rid of the past. I was a lush in my youth, footloose and fancy free. Now I’m a thirty three year old woman with no ties and no hidden agendas. What you see is what you get,” she eyed me.

“So,” she kicked me under the table, “have I succeeded in turning you?”

I did jump at that and she smiled.

“Sorry, sometimes I can’t help myself.”

Dinner was over soon afterwards but we retired to the hotel bar because it was serving free shots for hotel guests and it had one television tuned to the news. By the sounds of things, Pennsylvania was about to get blanketed as the storm moved inexorably towards New York. The only good news was that Milwaukee had seen the last of the storm but the airports would remain closed until tomorrow night at least.

Which was perfectly okay with me. It meant one more day before I had to confront my bastard ex husband and tell him once more, to his face that the marriage was dead and buried. There was no coming back from this affair.

Was it revenge? Would that explain why Elizabeth and I ended up in bed together? There is that aspect to it. I mean I did joke about it while we were in the bar. I was checking out the men and she was checking out the women but neither of us were going to pick up that night for the obvious reason that there was a lack of privacy. Hence we confined our ‘affairs’ to the realm of fantasy and after a while I found myself checking out the women she was eying up.

“Now that one is cute,” she pointed out a Hispanic woman, “not too skinny, not too big, just right.”

The woman in question was sitting not far from the bar, she was with a man but it didn’t look as if they were together.

“Should we go introduce ourselves?”

“Maybe not,” Elizabeth sighed, “I might have to screw her in the bathroom, up against the wall.”

I winced at that and she nudged me playfully.

“Ouch, did I hit a soft spot?”

“Something like that,” I admitted, “the last time I had sex in a shower I was, no that’s just too embarrassing for words.”

“Be a damn sight easier with a woman,” she replied, “you’d have to kneel in front and hold her against the wall.”

That did make me squirm.

“Sorry,” she shifted off her seat, “well, on that pleasant thought I’m going back to the room, you coming or do you want to stay longer?”

“I’m glad someone is coming.”

I smiled at the double meaning as I followed her out of the bar and headed back to our room. We said nothing until we stepped out of the elevator and then she nodded at a door.

“I have to check on my partner,” she handed me the card, “I’ll see you in there.”

I stepped inside the room a minute or two later, feeling almost turned on by the images swirling in my brain. It’s not as if I hadn’t dealt with those kinds of urges before but I was always in a place where you could be discovered and then of course there was the rather obvious fact that I was loyal to my husband. All that had gone now, he was the cheating bastard and I was now single. I was in another state, snowbound and if something happened between Elizabeth and I then it would remain that way unless I took it further.

I unbuttoned my jacket and tossed it onto the bed.

If I tried this and it wasn’t to my liking?

I took off my shoes and contemplated the inevitable aftermath. People had intimate encounters with each other in similar situations. He was always traveling interstate on business, staying in hotels. I think he’d even stayed in this hotel at least once because the name had been familiar when I booked it. I laid down on the bed and locked my hands behind my head. I was feeling the effects of alcohol, a kind of blurry haze that came and went. There was a temptation to raid the mini bar but then I’d be over the edge and heading towards the bathroom. The door clicked open as I was contemplating getting into my pajamas, Elizabeth entered the room and locked the door behind her.

“I had to wake him up just to tell him I was going to bed,” she smiled crookedly and took off her jacket, “I should have just let him sleep.”

“He seems nice enough.”

“He is,” she tossed the jacket onto her bed and sat down to take off her boots, “he so reminds me of myself when I was his age. I wanted to be the best F.B.I agent out there, I wasn’t going to be some shrinking violet,” she tossed the boots to one side and pulled off the shoulder holster.

“Now I’m just grateful to put my head on the pillow and wake up in the morning.”

“I can relate to that,” I rolled onto my side, “although in my case I’ll be waking up alone.”

“Well I doubt you’ll be alone for that long,” she replied, “you’re an attractive woman.”

“So, you find me attractive?”

Her eyes shifted as she undid a cuff button and proceeded to roll the cuff partway up her wrist, I felt almost frozen to the spot as she undid the second button and did the same thing with the other cuff.

“Um,” I looked at the fridge, “yeah, why not?”

Elizabeth stepped across to the fridge and I found myself staring at her perfectly shaped cheeks, I swallowed and looked away briefly but when I turned back she was squatting in front of an open fridge and looking over her shoulder.

“We’ve got the usual bourbons, Johnny Walker and some cheap knock off Russian vodka.”

“One of my favorite Russian words,” she grabbed two bottles, two cans of soda and two glasses.

“I was on an exchange program a few years back in Stockholm. One of the other people on the program was this mad crazy Russian woman,” she brought the bottles and cans back to the bedside table, “she was as straight as a ruler but when she drank you could swear that she was for turning because she’d throw her arms around you and swear undying love, in Russian.”

She fetched two glasses and sat down next to me on the bed.

“I actually thought she was that way inclined until a Swedish colleague actually told me she was just being friendly. They’re a very hospitable people and here was me thinking Natasha was trying to hook up with me.”

She emptied the vodka into the glasses as she went on.

“Although the woman who told me that actually fell into my bed, so the jury is still out on the case of Natasha from Yekaterinburg.”

She poured a measure of soda into each glass and handed me a drink, we clinked glasses and she managed a wry grin.

“Vashe zdorovie,” she then translated, “to your health.”

The vodka might have been cheap but it hit the spot, I took another mouthful while she moved further onto the bed and settled down beside me.

“Now if you want to know how they handle blizzards you should live in Russia, they know how to keep the roads and airports clear of snow. Granted I’m only going on the word of Natasha but it stands to reason.”

“Do you still stay in contact with Natasha?”

“Yeah, she sends me a happy birthday to her American friend and when Trump was elected she sent another message,” she closed her eyes, “now you will find what it is like being ruled by a child.”

“I would have thought the Russians would have been over the moon.”

“Not all Russians are pro government,” she replied, “she was scathing about government corruption in her country but powerless to bring the real villains to justice. She used to say if she was to arrest the big crime bosses then the entire government would collapse.”

“It sounds a lot like America.”

“Damn straight,” she raised her glass in mock salute.

“I’ve always wanted to go to Sweden though,” I lowered my glass, “I remember when I was young I went on a three month holiday to Europe. My parents were almost beside themselves, they were so convinced that I’d be seduced by a Parisian lesbian or brainwashed by German atheists that they had this prayer circle that went on for three months. They always said that was why I didn’t turn into a lesbian or an atheist,” I finished awkwardly.

“And now you’re lying beside one,” Elizabeth patted the space between us, “on a very comfortable bed I might add.”

“And my oldest daughter is gay, my mom told me she was starting a prayer circle just for her and I told her to forget the prayer circle. I am so over the fucking church, it’s like they have this mantra they repeat whenever they see a gay person, thank god I’m not gay, thank god I’m not gay, please don’t let me be gay.”

“What? I looked at her, “turn gay?”

“Well if you want to,” she smirked, “no, sorry, I meant I’m heading to Sweden for a week, I’ve got fourteen days leave I have to use up, so I’m going to fly to Sweden and catch up with some friends and then do some sightseeing in Norway and Denmark.”

“I couldn’t,” I bit my lip, “it’s your vacation.”

“It’s an offer, take it or leave it, I’m not flying out for another three months, well two months and three weeks but it’s close enough.”

I contemplated the offer as I finished my drink.

“I’ll think about that one, I have to finalize this divorce. He’s wanting to go to marriage counseling but I’m ending it, he can go if he wants but I’m out of the picture, he can take a fucking sex doll if he wants,” I put the glass on the table and shifted further down the bed.

“But on the gay question,” I continued, “that’s something I’ve been thinking about.”

“Tell me more,” Elizabeth rolled onto her side and swirled the vodka in her glass.

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Honey, I’m with the F.B.I, secret is my middle name. Elizabeth Secret Kelley,” she smirked.

“I made out with a girl once, in Nice?”

“While your mother was praying for you to be protected from lesbians?”

“Well there is that,” I sighed, “I was very drunk, she was hot and she’d just rescued me from some Italian men who were determined to bed me and wed me.”

“What was her name?”

“Promise not to laugh?”

“Scouts honor,” she held the glass in mock salute.

“Elizabeth,” she locked her hands behind her head, “don’t ask me her second name because it was a very French name, I was quite drunk and it was a long time ago.”